Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Ten days ago, when the Supreme Court of Wisconsin made their rush decision regarding the union busting bill, many people thought they did so in a most inappropriate fashion. As I wrote at the time:

Now word as come out that the "Supreme Court" of Wisconsin has, without apparent deliberation or research of the law, has ruled the open meetings laws to be invalid and that our elected officials (or at least the Republican ones) are above the law and don't need to adhere to the laws that they themselves had passed. Needless to say, WMC spent tons of money in making sure that Annette Ziegler, Michael Gableman and David Prosser were on the bench, just so that they could shred the Constitution and the law books and make irresponsible decisions like this one.

Justice Shirley Abrahamson accused the majority of reaching a hasty decision that’s light on legal analysis, opening them up to the unnecessary charge that they “reached a pre-determined conclusion not based on the facts and the law, which undermines the majority's ultimate decision.”

Abrahamson agreed in her opinion that the the challenge to the legislation raises fundamental constitutional questions. But she did not join the majority opinion because she believes the court should follow its own rules and the constitution in such a case. Thus, she believes the case should have followed the normal appeal route rather than the court taking original jurisdiction and issuing a decision that gives the case “short shrift.”

As if prescient of this, it was also widely pointed out that Prosser had made the statement during the campaign that he would be the perfect compliment, or rubber stamp, to the Walker administration.

Now there's even more reason to suspect the Supreme Court's supreme folly.

In the wake of the scandal arising from David Prosser's alleged assault on his colleague, Justice Ann Walsh Bradley, the right in their desperation, has also given us the clue.

For example, Cindy Kilkenny points out a commercial for Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson from when she ran for re-election a couple of years ago. In the commercial, as Cindy clearly demonstrates, is an appearance of Judge Maryann Sumi, who had initially and properly ruled that the union-busting, economy-killing bill was passed illegally and thus was null and void.

So now, apparently without consulting case history or of applicable case law, Prosser not only joined his colleagues in issuing a predetermined ruling, but also wrote his own opinion on the case, in which he took absolute glee in his diatribe against Judge Sumi. His opinion it was so harshly written, it sent a tingle down Charlie Sykes' leg and he couldn't stop talking about it for days.

In other words, he fed his misogyny in a fit of temper aimed at Judge Sumi and indirectly at Chief Justice Abrahamson (whom he has a special hatred for) in retaliation against perceived wrongs caused by female authority figures. At the same time, he was able to appease the Koch Brothers and WMC, who paid a lot of money for him to retain his seat on the Supreme Court.

Between the obvious corruption and the physical assault on another Justice, Prosser is unfit for the bench at any level and needs to be removed, either of his own volition or through actions of the other Justices or, lastly, through recall.

Furthermore, his ruling on the union busting bill should be vacated, since it's obvious that it was not based on the law or the Constitution, but on his political alliances and his own personal flaws.